Coins We Love: Educated Customers are the Best Customers
What’s the best value in numismatic education? The ANA Summer Seminar.
Every year, I put a plug for the ANA Summer Seminar in the CWL, and this year is no different! Wes and I returned from Colorado Springs this past Sunday, while Jack is taking a class in the second week and won’t return until Thursday. As in the past, I (JB) taught an Intro to Grading Class with my friend (and former DLRC intern), Matt Trookman of MTN Numismatics, while Wes took the Advanced Grading Class with an all-star cast of professional graders. Jack is following up with the Altered and Counterfeit Coin Detection Class to hone his numismatic detective skills. Overall, these classroom opportunities offer an incredible opportunity to further grow numismatic skills beyond the actual title of the course.
In my particular course, we survey the entire history of coin grading and give students a backbone for honing their grading skills by utilizing PCGS PhotoGrade, the ANA Grading Sets from NGC, and specific coins from the DLRC inventory. This year, we received a visit from Ken Bressett (former Red Book editor), who explained that he learned how to grade from William Sheldon (who invented the 1-70 scale in the 1940s). It’s things like this that occur during the Summer Seminar that you won’t see anywhere else!
Amongst the other events of the week is the annual ANA surplus book sale (Wes and I spent $200 on reference books and catalogs alone), the YN dorm house experience, and the YN Benefit Auction (which funds the ANA scholarships that are given to Young Numismatists on an annual basis). All of this numismatic activity and excitement help to overshadow the sub-par college cafeteria food and the college dorms without air conditioning (and hot water for the young folks for a few days!).
Honestly, my favorite part of the week is the camaraderie with other numismatists. This year, the event had an abnormal number of folks that I actually do buy and sell with, so seeing them outside of a show in a working environment was a welcome twist! I was also able to share meals with several folks that I had never met in person but had spoken with numerous times. So, suffice it to say that it was not only an educationally worthwhile week, but it was also a week of fantastic business connections. In fact, the week concluded with a nearly $300k deal that occurred because of the week in Colorado Springs. You could say that the ANA Summer Seminar is like the jelly of the month club, as it’s the gift that keeps on giving.
For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, I highly encourage you to check it out next summer if you want to spend a week immersed in coinage and collectors. In short, you get 4 full days of classroom instruction (in an informal setting, of course - approximately 8 hours/day), all the college dorm food you could want, PLENTY of time to visit the ANA Museum and headquarters, a fantastic ending banquet, and time with numismatists from around the world. It might seem like a long event, but there’s always something going on throughout the week with pop-up lessons, discussions, and mini-seminars that are certainly diverse in topic. All of this is happening with a beautiful background of the Rocky Mountains and Pike’s Peak. While I’m short on photos from this year’s event, we’ll throw a few in here anyway for you to see that we were actually working!
*Yes, this was money for the YN auction from 1999...proof that I've been here a few times!
If you’re interested in next year’s event, check out the ANA website at www.money.org in December when the class options are announced. But for now, let us know what you want to see at the Summer FUN show and enjoy this week’s highlighted Coins We Love!
Numismatically Yours,
John Brush and the rest of the Colorado gang at DLRC
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